On April 7th, 1994, tragedy struck in Rwanda; the Hutu started their attack on the Tutsi. Civilians and militia participated in the attack. This attack lasted one hundred days. It was the worst hundred days to be a Tutsi in Rwanda.
In the attack, the Hutu used guns and machetes. There were two ways you were informed it was happening in Rwanda. The village next to you was burning and you heard screaming and shots being fired, or your village was burning and you were forced to run. 800,000 Tutsi were killed during this genocide.
All this was caused because of a difference of opinion on who came first. The Hutu were actually there first. When Belgium colonized, they said that the Hutu were more fit to rule. The Germans said that the Tutsi
…show more content…
The Red Cross set up camps for the injured. The UN sent in a peacekeeping force. Doctors without Borders also set up camps for the injured.
The RPF takes credit for stopping the genocide. When the RPF attacked, they pushed the Hutu back. The RPF was made up of Tutsi refugees. The RPF was the spark of hope the Tutsi needed.
In Rwanda, 8,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed on the steps of a government building. During the massacre, the Hutu dreamt up some ways to kill the Tutsi. They lit a mattress on fire while a Tutsi man held it above his head. They would tie them up naked, take them to a road block, and chop them in half. They would also rape women until they went insane.
The Tutsi extremists were called the Interahamwe. The Interahamwe would call the Tutsi cockroaches. The Hutu would burn the houses of the Tutsi. There were 2,500 UN soldiers in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. Ten peacekeepers were killed and so the UN withdrew almost all of their troops, leaving only
…show more content…
The rest are Tutsi and a small number of Twa, the original inhabitants of Rwanda. In 1993, President Habyarimana signed an agreement at Arusha, Rwanda. On April 6th, 1994 the president’s plane was shot down. In September, 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) issued the first conviction.
By July, the RPF took over most of the country. Nearly all the Hutu fled. The RPF made a government similar to the one made at Arusha, with a Hutu president, a Tutsi vice president and defense minister. In April 1994, 5,000 UN peacekeepers were stationed in Rwanda, but by the time they reached Rwanda…the genocide had been over for months!
When the genocide began, the Hutu made television and radio channels telling Hutu that Tutsi were the enemy. Children would go around and either report where Tutsi were hiding, or kill other children. A Hutu adult would be walking down the road, see a Tutsi child, and kill them like they were a squirrel.
Some people think that the president’s government is responsible for starting the genocide. They say that he created the hate propaganda, and that the RPF was the group responsible for shooting down his plane. Some say that it was the death of the president, and that the Tutsi shot down the